Sometimes we take our kids for granted. Oh come on, admit it. It happens to good parents too. There's crayon on the walls, dinner is burning, and your dear darling won't stop shrieking for you to turn the TV back on. You'd sell them ... to the LOWEST bidder. Time for a hearty helping of homecoming videos. All it takes is seeing one military mama holding back tears as she cuddles the tot she hasn't seen in six months, and I'm feeling like the luckiest mom in the world.
For some reason the latest one out, a video shot by CNN that follows Staff Sergeant Kametra Smith into the classroom of 4-year-old Brooklyn, where the little girl practically bursts because her military mama is home from Iraq, hit me big time. Maybe it's because I have a daughter too? Or maybe it's because it's a mom?
The latest figures I could find on active duty women in the military put the total around 213,000. There's no accounting for how many of them are moms, but common sense says there are quite a few. I know at least one currently serving who will soon have to leave her son behind.
But you don't hear about these moms as much as you do the dads. Probably because of sheer statistics. There are more men in the military. Period.
And being a mom in the military is especially hard; some would say harder than being a dad. Just a few years ago one Army Major was trying to make it a crime for women serving our country overseas to even become pregnant. The ban was later dropped, but these ladies still face some major obstacles that their civilian counterparts don't. Most of us don't have to get back to a certain weight in order to fit into a uniform and pass fitness tests. Most of us don't have to agree to leave our kids for months, even years.
That's what makes military moms so incredible to me. While my kid is driving me bonkers, they're off in a war zone, wishing with one part of their heart that they could be home doing bedtime, serving their country with the other. They sacrifice a lot for us. If they can do that, I can put up with some crayon on the wall.
Check out this beautiful homecoming and tell us, what reminds you of how lucky you are to be a parent?